Rabelais
First Post
This month's books
The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox by Barry Hughart I can't recomend this enough. It's an exciting adventure story (actually 3 separate novels together in one volume) set in 7th Century CE China. It's brilliant, exciting, funny and romantic. Everything that good Fantasy should be.
This is the blurb from the jacket
Barry Hughart once remarked that he was inspired to write fantasy when he noticed that the characters of ancient Chinese fiction tended to finish their careers as gods in the Chinese pantheon, which is certainly as good a reason as any.
His Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox (Bridge of Birds, The Story of the Stone, and Eight Skilled Gentlemen) are rollicking, witty and original romps, intelligently written and engagingly funny in all the best ways, (meaning they aren't only funny). Now The Stars Our Destination brings all three books together into one omnibus volume, for the benefit of discerning readers everywhere. The award-winning Bridge of Birds introduces us to Master Li Kao,
Hughart's aged scholar with a "slight flaw in his character"; we see this remarkable old man through the eyes of his assistant, Number Ten Ox, the orphaned young man from the village of Ku-fu, whose most noble attributes are his strength, his purity of heart, and his lust...for life. Together, the two embark on a series of quests set against China's mythical landscape, and on the road they encounter gods, goddesses, demons, vampire-ghouls, puppeteers, poets and ghosts. To succeed in finding the truth, they steal, scheme, deceive, and generally cause mayhem for the ungodly. Master LI's penchant for plotting elaborate hoaxes is matched only by Ox's determination and loyalty, and in the end Right does defeat Might, Good triumphs over Evil and the innocent are indeed redeemed--if not quite in the manner that the reader might have expected
The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox by Barry Hughart I can't recomend this enough. It's an exciting adventure story (actually 3 separate novels together in one volume) set in 7th Century CE China. It's brilliant, exciting, funny and romantic. Everything that good Fantasy should be.
This is the blurb from the jacket
Barry Hughart once remarked that he was inspired to write fantasy when he noticed that the characters of ancient Chinese fiction tended to finish their careers as gods in the Chinese pantheon, which is certainly as good a reason as any.
His Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox (Bridge of Birds, The Story of the Stone, and Eight Skilled Gentlemen) are rollicking, witty and original romps, intelligently written and engagingly funny in all the best ways, (meaning they aren't only funny). Now The Stars Our Destination brings all three books together into one omnibus volume, for the benefit of discerning readers everywhere. The award-winning Bridge of Birds introduces us to Master Li Kao,
Hughart's aged scholar with a "slight flaw in his character"; we see this remarkable old man through the eyes of his assistant, Number Ten Ox, the orphaned young man from the village of Ku-fu, whose most noble attributes are his strength, his purity of heart, and his lust...for life. Together, the two embark on a series of quests set against China's mythical landscape, and on the road they encounter gods, goddesses, demons, vampire-ghouls, puppeteers, poets and ghosts. To succeed in finding the truth, they steal, scheme, deceive, and generally cause mayhem for the ungodly. Master LI's penchant for plotting elaborate hoaxes is matched only by Ox's determination and loyalty, and in the end Right does defeat Might, Good triumphs over Evil and the innocent are indeed redeemed--if not quite in the manner that the reader might have expected
